September 15, 2008

What Happens In Cologne Does Not Stay In Cologne, People

Non baby industry types may wonder why have two giant trade shows, ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas and Kind+Jugend in Cologne, back to back? Aren't they pretty much the same thing?

As David, our man in Cologne, shows, they most definitely are not. They may have showgirls in Vegas, but only in Cologne can we enjoy the choreographical stylings of the giant of the Baby Industrial Complex, Dorel. Dorel's booth at the massive Kind+Jugend baby gear expo featured, and I quote: "Sprockets-type interpretive dancers performing a stroller ballet full of Stravinskian angst."

Indeed. And they're circling some kind of kinetic sculpture-on-stroller wheels, no doubt getting whipped into an ecstatic and existential frenzy, as they grapple with the paradox that the very fertility rites engaged in will soon transform them into blank-eyed stroller shoppers.

Now Dorel is not alone in this stroller ballet craze. There was, of course, last year's jaw-dropping promotional video for the Bee, starring the leotard-clad mimes of Cirque du Bugaboo. It makes you realize that deep in the heart of every Dutch strollermaker, there's a freaky modern dancer just waiting to burst out.